Never Set In Stone

chapter six

It took me a few seconds to realize where I was and what had just happened. When I snapped back into reality, that's when I started hearing JD talking, asking, "Are you okay?" The way he kept asking it, it wasn't in a concerned tone. He wasn't freaking out while asking, he just said it as a way to clear his name in a way. I nodded without fully understanding if everything in my body was functioning.

JD reaches across my seat to the glove box to retrieve the papers he needed. At the moment I didn't understand the significance of the event, but I had noticed in time that before opening the compartment he grazed my thigh. Whether it meant something or not, it was overcome by the moment when his hand accidentally hit my right knee which sent an excruciating pain through the rest of my leg down to my foot. Something was wrong, I knew it. I screamed in agony causing JD to start to show some concern.

He tried to get me to calm down while also simultaneously calling all of the people that needed to be called and exchanging the insurance information with the guy that ran a red light. The guy that caused JD's car to be totaled. The guy that caused the anguishing pain in my right leg that I had yet to figure out what was happening.

Once I would get home, I would take a shower and change into comfortable clothes before eating something sweet while either watching tv or reading a book. Then once I got tired enough I would slowly start to fall asleep on the couch before making my way back up to my bed and calling it a night. I wish that was what happened.

Instead I was retrieved at the site of the car accident by my dad who took me to the doctors. For hours on end I waited until I was able to get x-rayed and scanned by all sorts of loud machines before the doctors came in and gave me a diagnosis. At this point my drowsiness resulted in me thinking delusion things like thinking that JD was waiting for me outside. Disappointed, he obviously wasn't. When I left, he barely acknowledged me. Saying a sincere, "I'm sorry."

"You have a broken ankle from the impact. We're going to place you in a special cast and I need you to ice your foot multiple times a week. We will monitor your progress for a few weeks at the time and it's only a matter of time to tell when you're able to start physical therapy," the doctors tell me.

It doesn't hit me. It doesn't occur to me that all of this just happened. I nod, "Okay." It was into the new day that I finally got home. Exhausted, in pain, broken into a million pieces, I lay down on my bed, stare at the ceiling while trying to go to sleep only to feel a tear, then two, then three, then more roll down my face.

It all finally hit me. I wonder if it hit JD as well. Maybe it didn't, because he's not in the same amount of pain as I am. Mental, physical, emotional pain. I lost a friend and I lost a functioning leg all on the same day. I tried to reach out to Ryan and tell him what happened, but of course he wasn't up, or at least he didn't answer.

I'm fine, I convince myself. I cried myself to sleep that night. And the next night. And I think the next night as well. I just kept crying.
The fact of the matter was a car accident does a lot more damage than you think. On the outside, the car can obviously be damaged in some way, shape or form, the people inside can get harmed. But they don't talk about the way a car accident messes with your mental and emotional status.

Walking - or limping - into school, everything just felt off. Ashlee was the only person I still talked to and she was the only one who made me feel a little normal. Every other time, I just felt awful. Ashlee and I connected on some type of personal level especially when she explained, "You know Larissa did the same thing to me in freshman year. She dropped me because I started being a different person once we got to high school.  I mean we're kind of the same in a way." I didn't know how we were. I didn't know her best friend turned against her and started dating her high school crush and then decided to inversely third-wheel her into the relationship just to prevent her from being friends with either of them ever again. How very lucky I am to have someone who knows exactly what the hell I've been going through.

Before JD chose Larissa over me I started caring less and less about school simply because I didn't feel like I had a reason to. My classes started getting hard for me to keep up with and in my opinion there was no way I could bounce back from that. I just kept digging myself into a deeper hole especially when things went wrong in most of my friendships. I saw absolutely no point to anything anymore.

Sometimes I would sit in class and zone out thinking about what I could've done better. Should I have kept my mouth shut and this would've all not happened? But he's just a stupid guy. No, he's not a stupid guy because he's my best friend. He would do absolutely anything for me, well, except choose me over his girlfriend. I still love him as my best friend even despite all of this, but, shit, this hurts. When people say they are heartbroken, people just assume it's a phrase. But when I stood there in the corner of the cafeteria surrounded by JD and Larissa, when I was arguing in the car with JD, I could physically feel my heart become shattered.

Then I remembered Ryan, how much he made me feel better. The day after the crash was when I told Ryan what happened. I heard his concern, I felt his concern in his voice. That day that I came back to school, Ryan was all over me. He kept hugging me and apologizing for an incident that wasn't even his fault. As much as I liked the attention from Ryan, I felt almost claustrophobic and I knew that it was mostly because of my ankle. It just made me feel so confined because I couldn't move, I couldn't escape from the affection but it was nice to feel loved.
I got used to it, the attention, the care, from everyone. From Ryan, from Ashlee, it was great, it was perfect.

The three of us sat at lunch together one day. Ryan and I sat next to each other with his hand around my waist and Ashlee sat across from us. We were having a great time as we ate our lunches and had good conversations. The laughter was the type of laughter that made you cramp but in the end it was worth it. After things calmed down, Ryan brought his right arm up as he grazed the right side of my body. It sent chills throughout down my arm. He squeezed it making me feel secure at the same time that he kissed the side of my head. I felt my face start to get red as I shot him a cute smirk.

Past Ashlee's head I see JD. I see JD and Larissa, sitting next to each other and both facing my direction. He looks down quickly as if he had just been staring at me but I end up not turning my head. I continue watching him as he tries to copy what Ryan just did to me. JD places his arm over Larissa's shoulder and from a distance I see his hand tighten around her arm. As he leans his head in to kiss the side of her head, she quickly squirmishes out of his grasp. His head moves slowly as he brings his eyes to mine. We watch each other's eyes for a second, expressionless, before we both go on to our lives.

If I was still his friend I would feel bad for him, but I didn't. He should know that his girlfriend doesn't like attention. I had no room in my life to feel sorry for him, because I warned him and he still didn't listen.